In Media Reshttp://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/imr
enMedia and the Occult [December 5th - 9th]http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/imr/theme-week/2016/48/media-and-occult-december-5th-9th
<p>Theme Week Organized by Matthew Boyd-Smith (Georgia State&nbsp;University)</p>
<p>Image used and altered under Creative Commons License via <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/23629083@N03/13103073355/in/photolist-kXSFcR-4THtFV-9j7jej-oVemPN-bsTQ81-oEvAuV-2qkbG8-AUDfz4-bpU3eH-b3MfX-5LNMxA-6qPQap-oUZy1T-5ma4MD-qRNajV-azePfs-b3Mge-5CWzGS-dvnBTp-7PMYwX-8RrTkR-s89R2a-b4ykkx-9MkZJE-7hiMFp-dJXHeA-39Xnh-eZviFn-dnnqXV-4TH18R-8WGND-4TH11r-4TMH3E-4THxQp-4THtUi-7PRbz7-7PMY9T-4TJzY8-8iFhgx-4TMGyw-7HRZwm-7mt4uc-3XYJT5-o2KyhD-8Zb1gA-c3DS1W-kwWtV4-bNR7Lx-HgzGK-df7sfc" rel="nofollow">Nell Tackaberry on&nbsp;Flickr</a></p><ul><li><img src="/files/teaser-images/1280px-Ghost_live_in_Utrecht.jpg" /><h3><a href="/imr/2016/12/01/spectacle-occult-symbolism-and-ritual-contemporary-music" title="The Spectacle of the Occult: Symbolism and Ritual in Contemporary Music" class="title">The Spectacle of the Occult: ...</a> by <strong><a href="/imr/users/heather-lusty" title="View Heather Lusty&#039;s profile" class="realname">Heather Lusty</a></strong></h3></li><p>Occultism has always provided a counter/alternative to prescribed organized religion &ndash; whose failure to prevent/console in times of war/strife, frequently exposed hypocrisy/corruption and charlatanism, and its tyranny/oppression of the (gendered, racial, class-divided) masses &ndash; is frequently the target of backlash/dissent. Its 20th century revival &ndash; Rosicrucianism, The Golden Dawn, Ireland&rsquo;s Celtic revival, personality Aleister Crowley, writers like <span class="caps">H.P.</span> Lovecraft &ndash; has resurrected occultism in modern&nbsp;media.</p>
<p>Music as social dissent has harnessed the occult to express dystopic &ldquo;realities.&rdquo; Image is everything in heavy metal &ndash; just as in occultism. In contemporary rock/metal, bands often exploit the symbolism of LaVey&rsquo;s The Satanic Bible. Music, as a post-war counter-culture movement branching into thousands of anti-establishment pastimes (radicalism, psychedelic drugs, cults, religious revisionism), has been a central pillar of western culture since <span class="caps">WWII</span>. From Robert Johnson to Elvis, Sabbath to The Stones, <span class="caps">BOC</span> to Slayer and Marilyn Manson, occultism is a fairly mainstream rejection (or celebration) of temptation (hypocrisy, corruption, lust,&nbsp;consumerism).</p>
<p>Ghost, a melodic Swedish [doom] metal band, capitalizes on imagery of the occult in a parody of organized religion &ndash; concerts are &ldquo;rituals,&rdquo; announcements &ldquo;messages from the clergy,&rdquo; fans &ldquo;members of the cult.&rdquo; Visually, the band is rich with imagery: full papal regalia and corpse paint; five Nameless Ghouls (representing fire, water, wind, earth, ether); an inverted-cross logo; &ldquo;stained glass&rdquo; banners recast narratives from Biblical stories; portions of the &ldquo;service&rdquo; replicate the rituals of mass &ndash; incense, chanting chorales, mock communion. Songs emphasize man&rsquo;s common struggles and needs &ndash; &ldquo;He is,&rdquo; &ldquo;Stand By Him,&rdquo; &ldquo;I Believe,&rdquo; &ldquo;Secular Haze&rdquo; &ndash; and present an alternative deity ready to fill the&nbsp;void.</p>
<p>Rhetorically, Ghost&rsquo;s success is predicated on its audience&rsquo;s understanding the symbolism. Their performances and lyrics humorously reject Christianity&rsquo;s hollowness, mysticism, and core beliefs. Embracing modern imagination, writing music celebrating Lucifer&rsquo;s power and love, Ghost offers a new (dystopic) faith. While the trappings of occultism have certainly become innocuously mainstream over the last 50 years, Ghost&rsquo;s performances &ndash; their repurposing of symbolism and appropriation of the rituals and mysticism of Mass &ndash; are a unique revitalization of faith in the modern&nbsp;age.</p><li><img src="/files/teaser-images/When I Grow Up.png" /><h3><a href="/imr/2016/11/29/ritualistic-embodiment-fever-rays-when-i-grow" title="Ritualistic Embodiment in Fever Ray&#039;s &quot;When I Grow Up&quot;" class="title">Ritualistic Embodiment in Fever ...</a> by <strong><a href="/imr/users/michael-frazer" title="View Michael Frazer&#039;s profile" class="realname">Michael Frazer</a></strong></h3></li><p>Indie producer Fever Ray is known for esoteric lyrics and stunningly dark imagery. From the music video for &ldquo;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBAzlNJonO8" rel="nofollow">If I Had a Heart</a>,&rdquo; reminiscent of the Jonestown massacre, to her appearance receiving a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymCP6zC_qJU" rel="nofollow">P3 Guld award</a>, wearing a mask <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/sep/12/fever-ray-zola-jesus-review" rel="nofollow">allegedly simulating acid burns as a form of protest</a>, Fever Ray&rsquo;s artistry is influenced by the spectacularly macabre. One example is the video for &ldquo;When I Grow Up,&rdquo; in which a young woman wearing a pastiche of symbols stands on a diving board of a pool. Covered in face paint, feathers, fabrics, symbols such as eyes on her palms, &amp;c., she performs a dance that, though angular and frenetic, emphasizes the rhythm of the song as her movements become increasingly fluid (compare 1:27 to 2:30). The image is that of feral pagan juxtaposed with domestic. Throughout the video, we get glimpses from inside the house (e.g. 0:18, 2:39) and from below the surface of the pool (e.g. 0:43, 3:11), the camera angle offering an almost voyeuristic perspective, as if this dance is the natural and the domestic is&nbsp;intrusion.</p>
<p>Though the Gaze is pervasive, the performance becomes linked to the perspective of the disembodied aqueous eye. The woman bites her finger and then lets a drop of water, saliva, or (symbolically) blood drip down into the pool (2:09). Regardless of what it is, there is an exchange of body for a vague <em>something</em>: it isn&rsquo;t until this drop hits the surface that the dance becomes significantly more fluid and the water more closely linked to the ritualistic movements. However, the body is not subjected to a loss of agency in this exchange. Through the ritual, the woman has assumed control of whatever is in the water, each shift of the body causing the water to burst into geysers (2:49). If the water is an extension of the fluvial &ldquo;body&rdquo; that is pure perspective (i.e. an iteration of the Gaze), this woman&rsquo;s dance has direct control over it. The purpose of ritual for this figure, then, is not simply using the body, but rather finding new means of embodiment through symbolic extension. In this way, the ritual subverts the Gaze, subjecting it to the body rather than the other way around, allowing the woman to control it instead of being subjected to&nbsp;it.</p><li><img src="/files/teaser-images/elaine_knife.jpg" /><h3><a href="/imr/2016/12/01/domicile-expression-individual-will-and-agency-anna-billers-love-witch" title="Domicile as Expression of Individual Will and Agency in Anna Biller&#039;s &quot;The Love Witch&quot; " class="title">Domicile as Expression of Individual ...</a> by <strong><a href="/imr/users/kate-morgan" title="View Kate Morgan&#039;s profile" class="realname">Kate Morgan</a></strong></h3></li><p>Domicile, as construct, and as set in a specific framework, when we pause to consider the implications of framing a home with images as presented in Anna Biller&rsquo;s recent film The Love Witch, can provide a rich tapestry of symbols to analyze in consideration of the traditional public/private sphere divide presented in studies of femininity. Private scenes set in an apartment where Elaine, a young witch who desperately seeks love, creates magical artifacts for sale and casts spells, are said by her landlord to be framed in images drawn from the Thoth Tarot deck from the Crowleyan tradition an establishing scene. The images found in paintings on the walls are not actually identifiable as such, however. Original paintings soon become replaced by Elaine&rsquo;s handiwork, like paintings in which she rips out the heart of men with a ceremonial athame (dagger) imagining herself as icon holding the reigns of a horse, while dreaming of many men. In considering the Crowleyan tradition&rsquo;s core tenet: &ldquo;Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Love is the law, love under will,&rdquo; and Elaine&rsquo;s use of these spells to initiate relationships that transpire in the death of several men&#8212;we might interpret Biller&rsquo;s portrayal of domicile as arena in which feminine agency is at its strongest&#8212;a place where woman can most exercise her own will, no matter how sordid it is. In contrast, scenes set in public&#8212;a smoky nightclub, in the confines of a police headquarters, and an open, airy Renaissance faire&#8212;create spaces in which Elaine futily attempts to express her sense of feminine agency. Here, Elaine&rsquo;s ego is thwarted by the will of others and is eventually reigned in by an investigator and unruly crowd who will not suffer a witch to live. If we examine how repression expresses itself through the forensic trail of Freud, Foucault, and Hegel as Judith Butler presents it in The Psychic Life of Power, Elaine&rsquo;s desire for bodily autonomy and matriarchal control over the process of life might present themselves in a more &ldquo;rebellious&rdquo; light. Butler states: &ldquo;The psychoanalytic discourse that would describe and pathologize repressed desire ends up producing a discursive incitement to desire: impulse is continually fabricated as a site of confession and, hence, potential control, but this fabrication exceeds the regulatory aims by which it is generated,&rdquo; (59). Butler also presents argumentation for a sense of love beyond the framework of power, a force that is &ldquo;beyond interpellation,&rdquo; in later chapters. In consideration of this theory, Elaine&rsquo;s actions and Anna Biller&rsquo;s ultimate statement might be interpreted through a lens that reads them in semiotic language that begs the world for a sense of feminine agency it just won&rsquo;t seem to&nbsp;grant.</p><li><img src="/files/teaser-images/dead of summer spotify.jpg" /><h3><a href="/imr/2016/11/30/satanic-panic-sleepaway-camp-freeforms-dead-summer" title="Satanic Panic at Sleepaway Camp: Freeform&#039;s Dead of Summer" class="title">Satanic Panic at Sleepaway Camp: ...</a> by <strong><a href="/imr/users/dana-och" title="View Dana Och&#039;s profile" class="realname">Dana Och</a></strong></h3></li><p>The resurgence of the Satanic Panic in media objects in 2016, whether in novels like Girls on Fire and My Best Friend&rsquo;s Exorcism, or the topic under discussion here Dead of Summer, a 10 episode series on the recently renamed and rebranded Freeform, traded heavily on nostalgia, popular culture, and a heady mix of belief and non-belief. The series encourages an official Spotify playlist to accompany each episode and creates playlists for each of the characters, crafting a discourse that the music gives insight into authentic characterization. The viewer is offered a way into the story through popular recognition of music that once may have been considered the devil&rsquo;s music. Indeed, the series, with its flashback structure and wide-ranging timeline, builds its references to various eras in terms of the pop music soundtrack that, for example, reimagines the Satanic Panic of the late 80s as extending beyond a goth/burnout/skater subset of teens to a larger and mainstream threat as evidenced through pop, alternative, and hip hop soundtracks. The stakes of music fully become clear in episode 1.10 &ldquo;She Talks to Angels&rdquo; (yes, every episode is named after a song) when a main clue from the past&mdash;a popular hymn recorded by the Tall Man, an African American ghost misapprehended as the demon for much of the series&mdash;successfully attacks and destroys a large number of possessed corpses. This hymn is played live in flashback and recorded on a phonograph to preserve the memory of how to kill demons, the playing of which is recorded on a camcorder and transmitted over walkie talkie. Technology, it would seem, enables the power of popular culture in general and music in particular to emerge as an alternate form of power and knowledge with which to fight the occult in an age of disbelief. Yet, the technology of the show itself ends up revealing itself to be aligned to the demonic dissembling through &ldquo;lying flashbacks&rdquo; and weekly Behind the Scenes featurettes. The move to imagining that the occult can be monitored, revealed, and defeated through technology parallels the same impulse in films such as Paranormal Activity. Likewise, technology gives only temporary reprieve and instead becomes evidence that knowledge does not equate to power, especially as the occult too works as popular knowledge and&nbsp;memory.</p><li><img src="/files/teaser-images/vf-cover-bruce-jenner-july-2015.jpg" /><h3><a href="/imr/2016/12/02/haunted-photography-barthes-camera-lucida-and-transgender-beforeafter-image" title="Haunted Photography: Barthes&#039; Camera Lucida and the Transgender Before/After Image" class="title">Haunted Photography: Barthes&#039; Camera ...</a> by <strong><a href="/imr/users/edeshane" title="View Evelyn Deshane &#039;s profile" class="realname">Evelyn Deshane </a></strong></h3></li><p>With her Vanity Fair cover, Caitlyn Jenner announced to the world &#8220;Call me Caitlyn.&#8221; During her interview with Diane Sawyer months before, Caitlyn was called Bruce and often referred to with male pronouns. In many ways, the 20/20 interview was shot to seem like a Before image, while the Vanity Fair cover was meant to be the After&nbsp;image. </p>
<p>This framework&#8212;the before/after juxtaposition continued in this YouTube clip&#8212;is often used in diet culture to frame a supposed undesirable body next to a desirable one. The form is also replicated by the dominantly cisgender media when reporting on trans people, or when trans people document their own transitions. The effect of this framework is simple: it pits two sides against one another through the use of binaries. For trans people, the Before/After image filters their life through perceptions of good/bad or real/fake selves, but I also suggest that the Before/After image frames a transgender person around the binary of dead/alive, thereby making the transgender person a perpetually haunted subject in the&nbsp;West.</p>
<p>As trans people move through the world, they must contend with two life narratives. They deal with their past&#8212;like Jenner did in the 20/20 interview&#8212;while simultaneously correcting it for the current situation&#8212;like the Vanity Fair cover. They consistently deal with changing licenses, birth certificates, and other government-issued paperwork&#8212;or deal with being ignored. Even the act of calling a trans person by their birth name is known as &#8220;dead-naming.&#8221; The way in which transgender people engage with a cissexist society is by being haunted, and photography is one of places that still conjure&nbsp;ghosts. </p>
<p>In Roland Barthes&#8217; Camera Lucida, he explores the punctum and studium of photography. The studium represents the cultural, political, and linguistic associations we can read in images, but the punctum is the emotion resonance we have with certain pieces. For transgender people&#8217;s images, the studium is their gender representation and what a culture says about their Before/After images when they&#8217;re juxtaposed. But the punctum is that perpetual haunting that follows the subject in the photograph around, and like Barthes says, pins them in&nbsp;place.</p>
<p>And it&#8217;s the punctum that I think of when I see Caitlyn&#8217;s Vanity Fair cover. To me, it&#8217;s not just a cry to call her by her name; it&#8217;s an echo in an already long haunted&nbsp;house.</p></ul>Fri, 02 Dec 2016 15:15:11 +0000ethan tussey3015 at http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/imr